Comment by Aerroon
3 months ago
Their telemetry data didn't seem to help them figure out how important the start menu is for users. I doubt it's going to help them really do anything else either. They might have the data, but they're not using it.
3 months ago
Their telemetry data didn't seem to help them figure out how important the start menu is for users. I doubt it's going to help them really do anything else either. They might have the data, but they're not using it.
I was at Microsoft during Windows 8 and the decision to remove the start menu was made with telemery data first and foremost.
"Only 3% of users regularly use the start menu." was the justification.
Then they did a bunch of research with eye tracking software to justify the new 'start screen' saying that it was actually better for users who do use the start menu because they were able to locate an item on the full sceeen overlay faster than the traditional start menu.
I think they forgot what people actually use the start menu for: accessing things not immediately available on desktop/taskbar. People don't use it to explore/play around. They're looking for something.
So of course they figure they can insert ads for their own shit, make it a Bing website search, whatever. People don't want fucking an internet search. They're looking for things on their computer.
I feel like these people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how human memory works. We have way better spatial memory than for words. The start menu is one of the better tools for that, because it can contain a lot of information (applications) based on where the user puts them and it's easily accessible. You don't have to minimize other applications, like you do if you want to access the desktop, and the start menu loads instantly (well, it did until Windows 11/before ads).
You're not supposed to "look" for where something is, you're supposed to know. Just like you're not supposed to look for the X in the top right corner of an application. You know it's there and you know that if you move the mouse into the corner you can click it (which is very infuriating when some UI design decides that the top right corner pixel does not count for pressing the X button). The start menu in the bottom left worked in a similar way.
Yeah, but all of that was supposed to apply to the Windows 8 start screen also
I would wager that most users that left telemetry on are fine with whatever changes Microsoft makes to the operating system and user interface, and that most people that turned telemetry off are the ones which want and need a good start menu and did not want those changes.